conventional forces what the disposition of the end of the day needs to be that the peninsula is is kind of insulated from the larger the geopolitics also north east asia south the south korea has already shown that it is not not terribly interested in getting into things like a regional ballistic missile shield well it's not interesting i'm going to eilat for a line we're going to find we're going to find actually yeah we're going to find out just how far the pentagon wants to go along with it john let me go to you because if you get if you look at the mainstream media and the punditry that we are bombarded with all of the time the mainstream media is really not on board here is it just because they don't want to see succeed at anything or in the military industrial complex i mean south korea and the and that region of the world is a nice. trough for arms in the u.s. as a vast military establishment there that needs to be paid for i mean he said

a combination of these things here and go ahead john in washington. well you know i peter i don't know that's that's that's kind of hard to say what i will say is this i think what has happened is that we have now gotten a de facto freeze for freeze this was the proposal you have that was made by moscow and beijing years ago and i wrote on this subject about a year and a half ago and i got excoriated now for saying that but this is what it is this is what is now de facto in place and so this is this is a big deal it is going to go you know the u.s. the u.s. military exercises this year the joint us are ok exercises are a shadow of their former self last year we had three aircraft carrier battle groups participating this year it's one small aircraft it's really an assault ship with

short takeoff and landing jade third f. thirty five so it's a huge deal now there are huge military asymmetries on the peninsula which are going to be astronomically difficult to resolve so we may get a start in these in these discussions when the two korean leaders may meet they may in a few days they may even declare and then to yes the korean war at least hostilities but it's going to take a lot of tough slogging to work through some of these details and to particularly to put in place the security guarantees which i think the north koreans are going to insist on to go forward daniel let me go to you i mean the security guarantees that's what it's always been about and i'm glad that john mentioned the freeze for freeze because that's been around for a while nobody in the mainstream media says that where that idea comes from but i can tell you if you go to last year during the security council you could see the russian and chinese ambassador at length go through that. process here daniel

before we go to the break go ahead in new york. well i just want remind your viewers that that in two thousand and two george w. bush virtually declared war on north korea which he somehow blamed for nine eleven but north korea was well i was one of the three countries comprising the so-called axis of evil and the us invaded one of those countries has you know it's been sort of rattling at the other ever since and so north korea had had grave concerns regarding its own security so kim jong un figured his only protection like a nuclear power nuclear weapon which he had any old and able guarantee that let me jump in here hold that thought gentlemen we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the korean peninsula stay with our team.

as one of the most controversial products about sun it's a subject vegetable fat that's very cheap. twenty seventeen production grew to sixty three million tons of rabbit growth an international demand for cheap oil has led to the massive expansion of the plantations which is the destruction of the rain forest. into the zero one more than ten million as of unique rain forest has been destroyed it's a process that just keeps going. put in lives by two things by his emotion and he. in the long term he should be placed

in a very long going so to speak a little. long distance rather than politics and that's the way they underestimate . welcome back to crossfire all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing the korean peninsula in the possibility of peace. ok let's go back to daniel in new york you were taking us down history lane you were you were just talking about the axis of eagle pick up from there go ahead daniel yeah so in two thousand and two with this axis of evil speech george w. bush essentially declared war on north korea and that that speech has never been rescinded anyway this one nope no apology issued no you know no taking back etc so

so so kim jong un figured quite logically that it's only protection lay and having a nuclear weapon capable of striking the united states mainland which he apparently has achieved. that is his that is his is great you know is great chess pieces ace in the hole and i don't think i want to live here but i really doubt that he will agree to for denuclearization unless the us needs is willing to engage equally and equally grand gesture which trump might be willing to do but i can guarantee the rest of the foreign policy establishment or blog as you call them will not they will raise holy hell and they will essentially block from from doing that. in washington can you reflect upon that because that's been. my inkling from all along you know i'm like john said i'm perfectly willing to give donald trump

credit for this if this is kicked it off ok fine ok but there are forces and you see it all the time in the corporate media mimics the in the their corporate owners ok they're not keen on seeing peace breaking out particularly if it means negotiations as equal that's not in their d.n.a. they don't operate that way go ahead absolutely absolutely correct first let me back up a little bit out here and say that yes i totally agree with john that a huge amount of credit is also due to donald trump because let us remember before he talked about fire and fury and destroying north korea he also probably went up farther than any us president had had talked about and talked about particular some assurances that he doesn't see the collapse of the north korean regime he doesn't seek regime change he doesn't want to have an invasion all of thirty eight over the thirty eighth parallel etc etc so he has tried he had made a lot of assurances also in his early months and that hasn't that has he has not

got adequate credit for that so yes i mean in other ways also donald trump deserves credit and that's that's that's that's perfectly fine you know the one grilli good thing going for donald trump is that the u.s. system provides huge on foreign policy huge amount of power not just of the presidency but to the president and so he can really override his staff because frankly this is all going to come down to donald trump and making that deal with jungle in which the foreign policy establishment has not been willing to contemplate and part of the reason it's not been willing to contemplate it's easy to see is that all the came regime for ever and the kims never never. on their from their part out. always cheating etc etc which is which is not entirely true it is partly true not entirely true but just too many forces i think

people in washington did in cornwall mindset confrontational attitude to ne station geopolitics with the thirty it being that trip wire and it's not easy for many off them to come to terms with that you know what. could be just insulated from that whole geopolitical environment let's ask john because john that was his line of business for a while i mean what are the forces moving against this here and beyond because it's donald trump's idea but i mean the you know talks through the bureaucratic inertia that you know that would be against this go ahead well i think i would disagree i think that currently the top leadership of the u.s. defense department is not against what trump is trying to do and we just saw that in syria we saw the d.o.d. weighed in and so we had symbolic strikes against syria rather than the more

far reaching operation that some were advocating so. i think that we have to be a little bit careful here now i would take this back even a little bit before the axis of evil speech people forget that nuclear weapons were first deployed on the korean peninsula during the eisenhower administration and we had at one time nine hundred fifty nuclear tactical nuclear weapons in korea this is this is now a de quite well we had seven thousand and western europe. anyway. president bush the elder who's now ill in the hospital was the was the one who decided to put an end to this this kind of madness and so we began withdrawing them but you know you don't have to explain the nuclear issue in terms of the evil nature of the

north korean regime although perhaps there's some of that that that can be part of the explanation it's really an action reaction sequence and we took the initial action and the north koreans then responded to it so i think the same dynamic can be used in the current circumstances and terms of confidence building measures and hopefully we can walk this back i agree completely that having. a progressive president in seoul is a huge help and i think china and to russia can also help but. i think it's going to be really difficult to unravel this not which which we've tied ourselves up in the peninsula and these various asymmetries ok daniel i think this kind of leads to where i want to go in the program i mean i am sure that there is there's a sense that if if the u.s.

in there's the perception of the u.s. backing down the perception of the u.s. . involved in a diplomatic process that would be deemed as a piece made here that would have a ricochet effect through all of the other in tangling alliances the u.s. has in the pacific is this part of the thinking there because it is john said you know to untie this or not here there is a huge ripple effect through the entire region go ahead daniel. totally true totally true and will be a huge ripple effect in washington as well where all these countries have their have their interests they have their they have their you know their little alliances japan most particularly russia and china as well so if you know. the north may be playing a kind of vietnamese game where they're trying to you know seek a closer alliance with the south in order to protect themselves against china so therefore that's certainly possible and china could be getting nervous as well and

china has friends in washington and. you have to say the japanese wouldn't be very happy with that unified strong powerful korean peninsula so you know that they wouldn't there to hold the fence thinking would have to be rethought keep going daniel and japan has tons of friends in washington also so so i think that we're going to see a huge ripple effect from the north northeastern northeast asia to washington. pile on and you know and trump is on one hand trump has got great power as a u.s. president but on this hand politically he's very. yes he is really on the ropes it's a ferocious problem. so i don't know i doubt very much it's he'll be able to withstand these forces and i think that he will i'm pretty sure he is incapable of engaging in the same kind of grand gesture that kim jong un is willing to engage on you know

let me go back to sort of i mean you know he won the presidency he surprises it's all the time you know maybe it'll work this time i don't know i mean don't you think also it's just a mindset i mean north korea is this cartoonish evil character the axis of evil i mean it's so convenient and there's so many people that have made entire careers out of demonizing and i'm not i'm not siding with the north koreans or its leadership i don't do that kind of thing i i'm basically a realist when it comes to foreign policy so but i mean don't you think that's part of the problem here is he is changing minds you know taking a fresh look and there isn't this really an amazing opportunity that we may never see again go ahead. oh absolutely absolutely you got an opportunity source the end of the korean war in. as since the end of the korean war to have a peace regime on the peninsula as well as since the denuclearization declaration and agreements of the early one thousand nine hundred to do the nuclearization let

me go out a little bit on a limb here and make two points you know with regard to denuclearize nation most people and i totally agree understand there the views that this is going to be very difficult close to impossible he's not going to give it up i'm one of those feel very tiny minority but who believes that this is very doable and i can really give it up i could give john i did john is not in the same position as saddam hussein. but he had to go hide it that's why he developed it in the first place to trade it away for security guarantees it seems logical to me exactly. exactly let me explain that point also you know what is a nuclear weapon the focus of a nuclear weapon is to call unacceptable damage to their adversary he already can do unacceptable damage to their adversary by crushing seoul with his conventional guns and therefore a nuclear weapon over and above that is something that he can leverage and he can bargain and which is exactly what he is doing and therefore i would say that this

is doable this is a great opportunity but what we have to do also is this cannot be a process which has strung out over many years on a decade on it's action for action with five hundred steps which then breaks down after twenty steps this has to be a big grand bargain account in a truncated where and then you define time period and i think it's doable let me go to look at let me go to john john you're on the negotiating team for the united states what would you tell your boss dollars trying to do in forty seconds go ahead hey i what i would tell him to do is just have good vibes in the in the meeting apparently that was the case when pompei went there i think. it's different this time around is that the negotiations are not being run through a bureaucratic process and a lot of people are criticizing trump on this score it's it's a crisis situation and people forget what we were talking about last fall we're

talking about the imminent prospect of war on the peninsula so i think things are moving in a good direction i am concerned about the asymmetries. also we're going to have one possible drop out in this process prime minister abbay is in do political trouble i'm not sure if he's going to be able to survive or not but yeah i think we we just have to hope that the intercooler and summit goes well ok and in a way moon isn't playing these vans gentlemen we have run out of time and very rarely do we end on a positive note many thanks to my guests in washington and in new york and thanks to our viewers for watching us here on c.n.n. and remember.

that. is one of the most controversial products of our time it's a solid vegetable fat and it's very cheap because it can't be completely absorbed by our bodies it can't lead to metabolic disorders and risk causing diabetes hypertensive diseases and cancers conditions even so production has still been increased in twenty seventeen that has no peaked at sixty three million tons twenty times more than the amount of all if oil produced that rapid growth in international demand for cheap oil has led to the massive expansion of plantations

which means the destruction of rain forest. in indonesia alone more than ten million hectares of unique rain forest have been destroyed and it's a process that just keeps going. so fast.

i i think i would be yes i think. you get the whole. new look at a ban on guns on hand at any. somebody's gun we. see

but i'm i start at the end of there to be really a discussion again if i do move to god i will deny that any locals are moved when jerry brown when you're. done by hand and the lies you learn get better but we do under a little more than ninety percent of the sun in this county but i mean you get banged up all over your job you do a gun look at the disability uni the day noonish i did the. research monitor if you show me get that the dow going to. go to me or like on a paper on the i said we. get that. guy you. back on. monday. it will go nine year. house but it is.

gonna. be. intense and sustained use of pesticides to keep our moral plantations free of weed and insects has poisoned the environment making it impossible to grow rice vegetables. these are the main food for the local population. the seasons of the region of the talks used to spread out from the palm oil plantations and they end up in local rivers which means the water isn't safe to drink so the best interests of the local population have been sacrificed to the meteoric growth in palm oil production and profit for the companies that make it.

a me. was outta me. yeah ne ne at the bottom in your. head you do need a lot are you young but i did them by the nice guy and now here i'm going to be a good day that he needed to get at the let me be saturday that he had a really. good to go. and most are serious as you can. almost see. it as i would have a little bit and. america i will get a commitment. and help us i would. thirty

percent of the adults in the village of someone young work on palm oil plantations the rest are real subsistence farmers. to find fertile fields that can be cultivated they have to travel several kilometers from the pommel plantations that are densely packed around the little cold villages. for a. new skin under very. very hard. very. very you know. the be without my feet and we definitely thought of.

so me and mum. so. if. we got the. the angry. thought and you got along great but i don't buy the. juggle for a thing if they were on but the morning that we. thought we had one thing i think i love the. five if i don't if i don't a month after that the only. thing i could do about that are down by the minute.

and i'm down and i don't get it out of the idea. and i think when you look around at your high you'll get either the. one i'm with you still think i would. still be out in the cold or them some cool guy who just. said yeah i've shot fifty. five for the third without any perceptible look see fit and he thought i'd be starting to see through and the thought of any thing he can get out of thursday that he. still i don't know the phone at the foot of.

most of the people who live in somalia and jai i have new choice but to be subsistence farmers. to use. catch river fish to grow vegetables and greens fit for human consumption. a continuous struggle for survival has become the order of the day from the moment the multinational oil companies moved into the area. but. won't talk i'm up on a mine when i'm up and about i mean it's got on going with america and all the.

mass i would be under that i'm going to hold up i'm going. to double to be happy but i've been. told that the only one to be picked are black on the i don't know my . one hundred in. the how do i need to. got by now. but i'm going up by youngest that i've got all the. money for the nearly two hundred mark of releasing me into new zealand government says palm oil production is helping a national economy boosting the industry and reducing poverty official sources point to more than five million people working in tom oil plantations and another fifteen million in related jobs ninety percent of the world's palm oil production is based in malaysia and indonesia. more oil is indonesia's second agricultural

product in terms of scale of production after rice. after more hostile for more than a thousand. if you're already. in the duel. with the honey do you have you back on the beach i'm going to do you need. to divide the little boy got. to do somebody go out and. when i. did actually when i've. got up on the hog not welcome or not it's up to one of the down day if i don't come by the time he and i mean the duel. we sampled we might be downhearted. not from one.